Asteroid Florence has two moons

[lukebl]

Interesting. The two moons are between 100 and 300m across, so would presumably be bright enough for amateurs to capture, although they may be too close to the main body to separate them.

FLorence has two moons

 

[Stu]

Very interesting, I wonder how that little system formed. Presumably gravitationally bound, quite surprising that such small objects still form orbiting systems.

[niallk]

Great stuff! 

"Backyard stargazers are enjoying the chance to watch the big near-Earth asteroid 3122 Florence sailing past Earth..."

I wish!!  

[Dave In Vermont]

Good posting, Luke. I was about to post this same article myself.

That Florence has really been a carrier of surprises. I hope we keep finding more NEO's and more surprises with them!

Good stuff -

Dave

[harrym]

2 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

That Florence has really been a carrier of surprises. I hope we keep finding more NEO's and more surprises with them!

As long as the surprise isn't that the NEO is going to hit the Earth...

[SilverAstro]

Thanks @lukebl

Isnt the universe a fascinating place ! So instead of pottering about with our little GoTos because it is so bright at mag8+ we should have had our 30" dobs trained on it !

Surprise scenario => Maybe it has a third yet undiscovered moon orbiting a bit further away from it ? How far could such a moon be and could it be about as far as Florence is from us !! eeeek, if you get my drift But I expect that bond would be so weak that it would have been tidally disrupted on the way in already ,,,, eeeek mkII  ,, so where is that third moon now. Duck !

[Dave In Vermont]

I was thinking about  the locating of Minor-Planets and how to detect mathematically if & where they might have a Moon(s) by their gravitational-field, but then I read your post (above) SilverAstro. I abandoned this project as I was laughing to much!

I did duck! (*< kwak!

Dave